If you took a look at the GamesCom thread, you should know how this works. I'll do my best to update this post with any recorded media and coverage to come out of PAX this year. Help is very much welcome. A couple of things to note:

• try to attribute the source of whatever you decide to post (makes it easier to reference here)
  
• I'll only be putting high-quality videos (i.e. no shaky-cam or severe blur) on the front page, but feel free to put up any video you want for the benefit of others

I approve of this thread.

Awesome. Thanks for the links.

Hopefully we get a Mesmer unveil at PAX.

@Skogen: They've already said that definitely won't happen. All the demo builds are exactly the same as what we saw at Gamescom.

Gaaah when can I get my hands on this beautiful game :x

Thank you for gathering all links in one place, very useful!

@Seppli: Just updated the post with a hint of beta info to come. It may be safe to say that the reveal will be more beta news.

@Seppli said:

@Dark_Lord_Spam said:

@Seppli: Just updated the post with a hint of beta info to come. It may be safe to say that the reveal will be more beta news.

Let's pray for a preorder box like SW:TOR. Just with beta access instead of early access.

I would be game for this. No pun intended.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: I'm sure this will make it in as well. Pro formatting and lots of quality content ... no brainer. Keep it up!

Dang - just watched the Finale. The devs were dominating with their leet strats and skill. The necro treb operator was the most awesome part of it. When he got attacked the first time he got to spawn like 5 little demon dogs - by the second time he got attacked those tore the enemy engineer to bits. Necros are going to be the PLAGUE! Sexyness just won a couple of notches toward being my main class.

...mesmer.

• Before the engineer was revealed, ANet stated that of the last two professions to be shown, one was brand new and one was returning. We already have the warrior, the ranger, the elementalist, and the necromancer. We know the monk and the ritualist are NOT returning. The thief has replaced the assassin. There are no spears (on land) or scythes among the weapons of GW2, thus, no paragons or dervishes. What does that leave? The mesmer.
• This next part is so blatant and detailed I'm just going to quote someone from another forum:

Ok, do note this first list includes MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EDGE OF DESTINY.

1. Mesmers are one of the 3 types of casters in GW2.

2. When Queen Jennah uses her mesmer magic, she also creates an image of herself, towering over the audience. This is specifically called " mesmer magic". This is a direct use of illusion, visible and audible by all.

3. With Mesmer magic, Jennah bonded herself to Logan. Doing this with physical touch, she entered his mind, saw all his memories, and through this bond, was able to call to him telepathically when he was far away.

4. When Kralkatorrik's energy battered Ebonhawke, Jennah and Countess Anise (both Mesmers) could sense Kralkatorrik's mind.

5. As quoted from Queen Jennah:

6. Through meditation together, Anise channeled her thoughts into Jennah, allowing her [Jennah] to look into Kralkatorrik's mind from afar, though only for a moment.

7. Jennah is able to summon an enormous illusion of Kralkatorrik, filling the sky and flying over and past Ebonhawke.

8. Along with this illusion, Jennah creates the illusion of all the defenders being turned to stone. This was not just an illusion, but penetrated the senses so deeply as to convince the defenders that they WERE stone, until it faded away. Jennah had used mesmerism to directly affected the sense; the consciousness.

9. Jennah managed to maintain the illusion of Kralkatorrik until it was out of sight, indicating a wide range of control.

Now, what can we see from this?
In lore, Mesmers are capable of:

1. Creating illusions; audible, visible, and tangible.
2. Using telepathy.
3. Making telepathic contact from a far distance.
4. Sensing the consciousness of others, despite line of sight.
5. Using telepathy through physical touch-- reading minds.
6. Manipulating minds ("how to turn them").
7. Manipulating the physical senses.
8. Maintaining illusions from afar.
9. Channeling thoughts/energy into others.

Now, do note Jennah is labeled as an extraordinarily powerful mesmer, so her enormous illusions and distant telepathic communication may be due to her immense power, and atypical of mesmers. Nonetheless, she, as a mesmer, did these things, and therefore they show what mesmer magic is capable of.

Turtle Beach stream was a colossal bust. They just looped a five minute interview piece that wasn't even live. Shame on you Turtle Beach. This Alienware stream is pretty boss though. Arenanet is dominating, surprise?

Edit: Arenanet necro holding off three guys! Wow ..

ArenaNet dominated the final yet again, but it seemed to come down to less a superior strategy than a greater handle on combat and movement. I'll be putting the tournament up as soon as it's online.

@Seppli: That's DEFINITELY confirmed to not be the case. There are two classes using heavy armor (warrior, guardian), three with medium (ranger, thief, engineer), and three with light (elementalist, necromancer, *unrevealed*).
 
Source. And come on, look how many times the name "mesmer" is used in that quote. Straight from the book!

In the case for the mesmer, don't forget the concept art that more or less matches the shadowed out image on the official website. This is the same way we knew about the Guardian and Thief before hand. There's really no point in speculating, it's the mesmer.

It wouldn't make sense to have a third heavy armour class, because they're trying to make each class as distinct as possible. Warriors focus on multiple weapons and high damage output, where as Guardians are more about defence and support. What would a third class do, that wouldn't just be a mix of those two or a slight variant? I'd love to see a more rogue like mesmer, with the ability to equip guns, but I don't think they'll change much beyond that.

It's a very iconic GW class and just had to return.

Oh fuck me, I thought the show started tomorrow and today was just... nevermind. *dives in*

Love how the JustinTV recordings are @ 60 FPS. Makes a world of difference. Awesome.

Nom Nom Nom, there was a Norn Warrior wielding a Greatsword in the 3rd match-up of the afternoon tournament. Looking good! Might have found my main right there.

Thanks for grabbin those PvP stream archives - was sweating about missing them due to work.

Loving this thread. Thanks a lot!!

Loving this thread. Thanks a lot!!

As an added bonus, here's a guardian swinging his hammer.

Thanks for the info!

Love love love this thread.

Some new guild info from the panel.

“You can belong to as many guilds as you want. You can choose not to represent any of the guilds if you want to, or choose which one you would like to represent on any given day.”

“Talking about how they wanted to give people reasons to be in a guild. Earning “influence” when you do things with your guild. Can use influence to purchase, say, a flag that you can put down in an area and then anyone from your guild who’s near that flag gets an exp boost.”

“Guilds will earn influence and use this to unlock a skill tree of abilities to help the whole guild.”

“Guilds can own and upgrade “keeps” in WvWvW.”

“Influence can be used to unlock guild goodies, such as a flag to give an xp bonus.”

“Question about being in multiple guild chats at one time. You cannot do this. You can switch to whatever guild you want whenever you want but you can’t see multiple guild chats at once.”

“Trait system was scrapped and being redone.”

Some new guild info from the panel.

“You can belong to as many guilds as you want. You can choose not to represent any of the guilds if you want to, or choose which one you would like to represent on any given day.”

“Talking about how they wanted to give people reasons to be in a guild. Earning “influence” when you do things with your guild. Can use influence to purchase, say, a flag that you can put down in an area and then anyone from your guild who’s near that flag gets an exp boost.”

“Guilds will earn influence and use this to unlock a skill tree of abilities to help the whole guild.”

“Guilds can own and upgrade “keeps” in WvWvW.”

“Influence can be used to unlock guild goodies, such as a flag to give an xp bonus.”

“Question about being in multiple guild chats at one time. You cannot do this. You can switch to whatever guild you want whenever you want but you can’t see multiple guild chats at once.”

“Trait system was scrapped and being redone.”

Here's some low-quality video for the barbarians among you:
 
Asura Animations (RevGaming / YouTube)   

Can't find any new PvP videos! Didn't day say they'd do 2 dev tourneys each day?

@Seppli: Yeah, unfortunately Alienware didn't stream yesterday's out, so we have to rely on someone at PAX capturing and uploading it.

Looking solid.  Also the last profession will be a revamped Mesmer.  As mentioned before it is being brought back from GW1 and that it will be an advanced profession.  The hardest class to master was indeed the Mesmer in GW1, but if you did man you could be a really problem in PvP.  Pargon and Dervish seemed to be kind of meshed in my eyes into the Guardian, Dervish could be a very defensive profession in GW1 and Pargon would help with a lot of buffs.  Seems like those are two attributes the Guardian has.
 
Plus it was already stated there will be three scholar professions, currently there is only the elementalist and necro.  Anyways still digging that PvP gameplay a lot.  Though after watching the vids there is one thing I am not too fond of and that is whenever the Asura character stops moving they do this little hop.  I know I am being picky with that, but just seems like too much.  Otherwise I love the animations for the Asura.

Gamebreaker is streaming live updates and commentary from the game design panel, here's some info from the Q&A (ripped straight from Gamebreaker feed):
 

• "Question about content - asking about the kind of armor and weapons we'll be seeing. Answer: saying how they have a massive number of item skins and how a great deal of effort has been put into where these skins (items) will come from (dungeons, crafting, etc). GW2 has more armor sets than GW1 and more available per character, because of the armor system. Also mentioned is the dye system and how that will make your character stand out."
• "Question about event scaling. Asking if one person can do a dynamic event. Answer? The majority of the events in the game are designed to scale down to one player and scale up to multiple numbers of groups. But there will be some events that require multiple people and cannot be completed by a single player."
• "Question about PvP - asking if rock/paper/scissors is done away with in GW2 PvP. Their answer starts with "kind of..". Explaining that because of the flexibility of GW2 skills it's not a "hard" rock paper scissors but more variable."
• "Question about if you'll be forced to be red and blue in PvP, or if you can show off your dye job. Answer is that you'll have the option to show the other players your team colors or your own colors."
• "Question about how they expect the events to change once they get into beta. Basically an impossible question to answer until everyone gets into GW2 and starts testing! They're getting it internally to some degree but we'll have to wait and see how beta changes the dynamic events."
• "Question about the process of developing events and making them fit into the world. Asking about how they fix an event after they've been fully developed and somehow they missed a massive issue. (The example was our king event being OP) Answer is that they have no problem taking content out when it doesn't work or ripping it up and rebuilding it so it does make sense and work within the world."
•   "Question asking about the 8th profession. Answer: Yep, we have eight professions." (editorial looooooooooool)
• "Question about guild halls! Answer is that there will not be guild halls 'in the initial release.' At some point they WILL DO HOUSING! A 'really robust housing system.'" 
• "Talking about how effects can go through some things. Through walls of fire, etc. Question about if we can put a mine on a warrior and blow everyone up. We cannot. :( "
• "Question about.. jacking swords from NPCs. This audience member saw a really neat sword during his demo and would like to have it. Anything you see on an NPC wearing is HIGHLY likely to be available to you at one point. Not every single item, but almost all of them."
• "Question about dynamic events and how it relates to itemization. Talking about how you will not specific items for doing a specific event. All events reward you with karma, which you can spend at NPCs to get what *you* want. That way players aren't left behind because they aren't seeing one specific event spawn."
• "Going to have a team dedicated to bringing more dynamic events into the game after release."
• "Question about crafting - asking how you will be getting crafting materials and what percent GW2 is complete. They can't tell us how far into being finished with the game they are because at any time they could go back and restructure, remove, or completely remake parts of the game. For crafting you'll be able to salvage items in the world but one of the major ways you'll be getting crafting items is through a gathering system. Talking about how it encourages exploring and interacting with the world and the dynamic events within it."
• "Last question. Asking about they plan to deal with depopulation in world events as players move on to the next zone and less people are in the lower level zones. Answer is discussing how the events are built to scale."

So no official word on mesmer yet? lame.

This game looks so damn good. I have been playing in the swtor beta and the story stuff is great, but the combat is still kind of boring, similar to wow. It looks like the combat in this game is going to be amazing, and it also looks really polished for not even being in beta yet. the more I see the more hyped I am.
 
And here are is a well commentated video of the 40min demo.
 
     

@xhavoc86 said:

So no official word on mesmer yet? lame.

They did say it wouldn't be at PAX but sometime before the end of the year.

I'm also happy to hear most of the NPC equipment will be available to wear (which we really already knew, but still). So many of the heroes in GW1 had amazing looking armour sets that were totally unavailable. It made the heroes look more unique, yes, but it was silly that they had stuff that looked better than anything available to the players.

@WinterSnowblind said:

... but it was silly that they had stuff that looked better than anything available to the players.

Agreed 100%

Unique is good, but the promotional warrior (who wasn't even in the game - or perhaps, wasn't a main character and I missed him) for GW1 still looks cooler than any player warrior I've seen. (maybe because his armour actually looks almost practical - and his helm is badass)

Then again, that is a very hard line to walk, so I'm just hoping that the end game armours are worth my time.

@selfconfessedcynic: The knights armour was pretty similar to that one, I always loved that set, I was happy when they finally added a 15k version.

And hey, at least we finally get that promotional set in GW2. I'll probably keep my Guardian in that until the end game. :)

@WinterSnowblind: Man - 15K Kurzick Armour (actually forgot about 15k sets) was what I ended up with for the majority of my game. It looks awesome if you ditch the helm and dye it properly (I think I did mine silver?).

But yeah, getting awesome armor is always fun - it pretty much provides the basis for my engame gameplay when not PvPing. Here's hopin for some awesome designs (they've stuck to showing generic ones thus far - I wonder what they've come up with)

It's a GamesCom video, but definitely one of the best coming out of late; so far PAX has been very meager, so I'll just post it here too - just so you don't miss out. An Asura Elementalist questing in Sparkfly Fen. Nice Steady Cam footage with Direct Feed ingame sound. Pretty much sells me on the Elementalist class. So rich in active skills thanks to their attunements.
 
  

@WinterSnowblind: Man - 15K Kurzick Armour (actually forgot about 15k sets) was what I ended up with for the majority of my game. It looks awesome if you ditch the helm and dye it properly (I think I did mine silver?).

But yeah, getting awesome armor is always fun - it pretty much provides the basis for my engame gameplay when not PvPing. Here's hopin for some awesome designs (they've stuck to showing generic ones thus far - I wonder what they've come up with)

Just wanted to weigh in and say thanks to OP for this update thread and collecting all the links -- Guild Wars 2 is the only MMO on the horizon that I can summon any half-serious ideas about playing. Not to say The Secret World or maybe one or two others aren't looking interesting, but ... I really have no time these days for a subscription-based MMO.

@Seppli: Wow, elementalist looks like it's going to have a ton of abilities in between attunements and weapon swaps. Every time I see a new video for one of the classes I realize just how good all of them look.

@Seppli: Wow, elementalist looks like it's going to have a ton of abilities in between attunements and weapon swaps. Every time I see a new video for one of the classes I realize just how good all of them look.